


their minds are their own

by karatam



Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-11
Updated: 2012-05-11
Packaged: 2017-11-05 04:02:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/402229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karatam/pseuds/karatam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She remembers light and dark and hot and cold and <i> red, so red, bleeding red, gushing red, blood red.</i></p><p>Her hands are clean and she stares at them as she finally speaks. “How many?”</p><p>He stays quiet, a soft breath her only reply.</p>
            </blockquote>





	their minds are their own

Cold.

Burning.

Dark.

Blinding.

The world is nothing and everything at once. Her eyes and ears are lying to each other and to her and are telling the absolute truth. The air is clean in her lungs but she is inhaling smoke. The silence is deafening and the chaos is quiet.

She cannot move.

She is flying.

There is a knife in her hand and she brings it down once and there is resistance and her fingers are wet. She brings it down again and her face is wet, dripping from her hair and off her chin.

She looks at her hands and they are red, so red, bleeding red, gushing red, blood red.

She blinks and they are clean.

She is somewhere else, then another place and another.

A gun, cold and hot and heavy and smooth in her hand. Recoil, a bullet firing away into the distance, into a person, into a child, into a man, her shoulder reacting to the force.

Hands wrapped around her throat, scrabbling desperately, her fingers digging into a windpipe.

A snap.

Always blood ( _red, so red, bleeding red, gushing red, blood red_ ) on her hands, under her fingernails, dripping from her red hair. Always red.

Cold.

Burning.

Dark.

Blinding.

Her mind is not her own.

 

/ /

 

The light is cool and blue and white. Soothing.

Her brain feels fractured, her mind crawling from her skull.

Are her eyes open or is this another dream.

“Natasha…Natasha.”

That is her name. It wasn’t always, she has had too many to count. She is muddled and mixed like paint on a palate. Her name is Natasha (and Alice and Maria and Jennifer and Alex and Genevieve and Rose and) and the voice is familiar.

The light hurts her eyes but she opens them.

Straps around her wrists.

 (O _h god, the men in the coats have her again. They’ll stick needles in her skin and peel her soul from her bones again._ )

A hand touches her forehead and she flinches away and gasps at the pain that lances through her head. The hand is callused and warm and only brushes her ( _red, so red_ ) hair away from her rapidly blinking eyes.

Her vision clears, focuses, and she can see the man standing by her side, brow furrowed, lips pulled down at the corners.

She knows this face.

Clint (and Nick and Tony and Michael and Peter and John and) is here.

He is real. She knows him.

She trusts him.

She did.

“Natasha, you’re okay. We got you out.”

She blinks. She is in the same place, Clint is still here.

He reaches for the straps around her wrists and she stays still as they loosen. She can see the pulse beating in his neck. Her fingers twitch but her hands remain still.

“What do you remember?”

She remembers light and dark and hot and cold and _red, so red, bleeding red, gushing red, blood red_.

Her hands are clean and she stares at them as she finally speaks. “How many?”

He stays quiet, a soft breath her only reply.

She looks at him and his eyes are sad. He stays with her, alone, for hours while her mind puts itself together again. She focuses on him, constant and still, as she sorts through all the red,  _so red, bleeding red, gushing red, blood red_.

Her world is remaining steady and Clint is real and she trusts him.

Her mind will be her own again.

 

/ /

 

She hits him one more time as he says her name and he stays down this time. His body lies still and quiet on the grating as she bends down to check his pulse. Steady and constant. As always.

Pressing a hand to the commlink on her ear, she says, “Romanov here. I need a medical team to level 3, near the weapons bay.” An acknowledgement sounds on the other end and she lowers her hand again.

“What did he do to you, Clint?” Her voice is too loud in the silent hall.

She waits by his side until she hears the clattering of boots against the metal grating that signals the arrival of the medical team.

His eyes had been too bright, too pale, to be his own. Something had his mind under its control.

But he had said her name at the very end, he had recognized her face.

Coulson’s death is suddenly announced on her commlink and she exhales slowly. He had been her handler for years and she knew him and he knew her and _no_. There is no time for this now.

Clint’s mind is not his own.

She needs to help him get it back.

 

/ /

 

The guards refuse to leave at first, unwilling to leave her, a woman, alone with this crazy master assassin. So she flips one as she puts the other in a choke hold.

They step out the door after that.

She sits in the single chair and waits.

He had been by her side when she woke up. She owes him this. There is red in her ledger and she _owes_ him this. She will be his constant.

She has red in her ledger and she wants to wipe it clean. That is the only reason she is here. The only reason.

Maybe it will sound more convincing when she says it out loud.

He lies quietly for a long while before his hands and face start to twitch. Then his arms start to pull at the restraints and his legs thrash on the bed. His lips are pulled back in a snarl and his fists clench.

His eyes are still closed.

She turns up the lights a little bit and watches as his eyes open and blink.

“Clint.”

That is his name. He has had many but that is his name.

He focuses on her, eye full of pain and confusion. His lips are dry so she moves to pour him a glass of water.

“How many agents?” The same question she had asked him so long ago.

Like him, she doesn’t give an answer. He’ll find out from the report like she did, but later, when this is all over and done with.

She stays with him, constant and steady, as he puts his mind back together.

His mind will be his own again.

 

/ /

 

She tells him that she has red in her ledger and he looks at her like he understands, because he does.

Their ledgers are red ( _so red, bleeding red, gushing red, blood red_ ) and maybe nothing can ever truly wipe them clean of what they’ve done, but they are willing to die trying.

They probably will.

But that is a concern for another time.

Their minds are their own once more.


End file.
